Free the Tripoli Six

Posted by Tim Lambert on September 20, 2006
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Five nurses and a doctor have been falsely accused of deliberately infecting their patients with HIV. They’ve been imprisoned and tortured in Libya since 1999 and may now be condemned to death. Declan Butler writes:

what is needed is an immediate and sustained mobilization of international opinion, something which has been badly lacking so far. Bloggers, and the scientific community, can help create pressure on the authorities for the immediate release of the Tripoli six: Christiana Malinova Valcheva, Valia Georgieva Cherveniashka, Nasia Stoitcheva Nenova, Valentina Manolova Siropulo, Snezhana Ivanova Dimitrova and Ashraf Ahmad Jum’a

Other ScienceBlogs posts on this case.

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Comments

  1. #1 Aerik
    September 20, 2006

    Wow I’ve opened up all the scieneclogs articles on this issue in tabs and a synicated news article after that. I haven’t read it. First I comment on Bushwell’s blog and now I turn to yours and read “They’ve been imprisoned and tortured in Libya since 1999…”

    Now I’m really, really angry.

  2. #2 Ben
    September 22, 2006

    I know, have the UN issue one of their stern letters. That always works.

  3. #3 Ian Gould
    September 23, 2006

    Better yet Ben – have the British praise Gaddafi as an “elder statesman” who contributes to regional stability again.

    BTW, you know that UN sanctions did force Gaddafi to hand over the Lockerbie bomers, I take it?

  4. #4 Ben
    September 23, 2006

    Wow, the UN actually did more than issue several stern letters? And it only took 15 years!

    If I remember correctly, Gaddafi was on the receiving end of bombs sent with love by Reagan. Maybe he didn’t want to go through that again. My Lybian friend said they were very happy after the bombing because they thought Gaddafi was dead, but then were greatly dissapointed when his stupid voice came back on the radio later that day.

  5. #5 frankis
    September 23, 2006

    A girl (his daughter?) was killed by the bombing that missed Gaddafi, Ben – is that your memory of it too?

  6. #6 Ian Gould
    September 23, 2006

    Yes just think sanctiosn take longer to work than the average sit-com.

    This is an obvious fatal defect before we even consider the lack of colorful explosions and stock footage of fighter aircraft on the news programs.

    Then again Reagan’s bombing raids failed completely (other than as Frankis noted to kill one of Gaddafi’s infant daughters). So obviously let’s skip straight to the ground invasion – after all that strategy has worked wonderfully well in Iraq and Lebanon.

  7. #7 mike
    September 24, 2006

    Yeah, this has been all over some of the English-speaking Arab blogs and related sites for a very, very long time now. Qaddafi is definitely playing games with these individuals. In part, to detract attention from the unsanitary conditions that foster the spread of AIDS in Libyan hospitals.

    Wikipedia has a decent article:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_five_Bulgarian_nurses_and_a_Palestinian_doctor_in_Libya

    Then again Reagan’s bombing raids failed completely (other than as Frankis noted to kill one of Gaddafi’s infant daughters)

    They failed so completely that Qaddafi has never dared attack the United States again.

  8. #8 Ian Gould
    September 24, 2006

    “They failed so completely that Qaddafi has never dared attack the United States again.’

    When had he “attacked the United states” previously?

    Note: attacking US naval vessels that knowingly enter into what Libya claimd as its territorial waters doesn’t count.

  9. #9 Ian Gould
    September 24, 2006

    Yeah, Reagan’s attack on Libya for (alleged) complicity in a bombing attack which killed 60 people was so effective that it was more than a year before Gaddafi dared (alleged) kill 270 people in the lockerbie bombing.

    (Yeah it wasn’t a direct attack on the US, involving as it did an attack on a US-bound aircraft in British airspace, but neither was the earlier attack on La Belle disco in Berlin.)